


Picking Up the Pieces of My Life (Without You on My Mind)

by awkwardanxiousasexual



Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: Carrie Wilson Redemption, Gen, I made up some Dirty Candy people sorry if they all have names but I dont know them, Possessed Nick, Takes place right after season 1, will tag as I go
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2021-02-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:48:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28304814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/awkwardanxiousasexual/pseuds/awkwardanxiousasexual
Summary: Lately, Carrie feels like she's the only one paying attention. Because something is wrong with Nick. And she is going to get to the bottom of it.AkaBasically I took the idea "What if Carrie is the first one to notice that Nick is possessed by Caleb?" and ran with it
Comments: 8
Kudos: 26





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from "I'm Still Standing" from Elton John.

She’s sitting in history when she first notices. Nick sits in front of her so she has a clear view. He was sitting completely straight up. And it’s not like his typical posture is bad but this was exact. Back rigid, head staring right at the board and hands folded on top on the desk. There’s an open notebook and a pencil but Nick hasn’t written one thing down this entire period. 

“Carrie?”

She refocuses her eyes and turns her attention to the front of the room where Mr. Dawson is waiting expectantly. Carrie lowers the pen that she hadn’t realized she was chewing and clears her throat, “Yes?”

Mr. Dawson leans back so that he’s sitting on the top of his desk. “I was wondering if you could provide me with the answer to the question I just asked?”

Electing to take a stab in the dark instead of admit that she wasn’t paying attention, she replies, “The Epic of Gilgamesh?”

A sigh. “You’re about a couple centuries off Carrie. Anyone else?”

Slowly, almost methodically, Nick’s hand lifts towards the ceiling. “The Treaty of Paris.”

As Mr. Dawson launches into the rest of the lecture, Carrie has a hard time paying attention. 

\---

“Have you noticed anything weird with Nick recently?”

Kayla rolls her eyes as she puts her lunch tray on the table. ‘I told you, he’s not worth your time. You have to stop thinking about him.”

“And I thought I told you,” Carrie replies sharply, “I’m over him. But I think there’s something wrong with him.”

She sighs. “The only thing wrong with him” -Kayla picks up a French fry and waves it around for emphasis- “it that he broke up with you. 

Carrie grabs her hands and looks her in the eyes, “Just look at him, please? I need to know I’m not being weird about this.”

Kayla looks annoyed but thankfully decides to humor her. She turns around and watches the other side of the cafeteria for a moment. Finally, she twists back to report. “He looks fine. He’s hanging with Julie and what's-her-name.”

“Flynn,” Carrie supplies, moving to lean her cheek against her hand and focusing down towards the table. In the corner of her eye, there’s a few fingers tapping impatiently. Eventually Kayla speaks.

“Look, the only person not acting like themselves right now is you. This moping mess isn’t the girl I became friends with. So get over him and do it soon, alright?”

She nods and Kayla starts telling a story about her day. Every once and a while though, she sneaks a glance across the cafeteria. Maybe she’s wrong, maybe she’s just overthinking this. 

But, near the end of lunch, Julie and Flynn get up to head to class early and Nick stays at the table. He watches them, following the two with his eye until they’re in the hallway. Then, once they’re out of sight, Nick starts laughing quietly to himself. 

Screw Kayla. This isn’t jealousy or paranoia or dumb ex-girlfriend stuff. This is real and it’s happening right in front of her. 

\---

A jumbled mess of arms, legs, and sequins sends Carrie tumbling to the ground. She falls hard and the whole experience forces her back into reality. 

“Carrie! What the hell?” Every member of Dirty Candy is looking down at her. 

She pulls some hair out of her mouth and sits up, “Sorry, I got distracted.”

One girl, Britney, laughs. “Really? You make us practice for hours and nit-pick every mistake but when you completely forget the choreography it’s ‘Sorry, I got distracted’? Grow up Carrie.”

She glares at her as she stands up and walks over to her phone to restart the music. “Whatever. Let’s run it again.”

“Fine,” Britney replies in a huff, “Just don’t do it again. I’m not twisting my ankle because you can’t get over the fact that your ex left you for another girl.”

The comment stops Carrie in her tracks and she sees red for a moment. If Britney weren’t a fantastic dancer she might have kicked her out of the group right then and there. She turns back to face her. “I’m not pining after Nick and I’m certainly not jealous of anyone including Julie.”

She catches a few raised eyebrows as the girls head back to their starting positions. “Look, I worked-” She hears a scoff from the back and corrects herself, “We worked hard on this routine and we’re going to get the recognition we deserve. Julie is a hack who is going to be a one-hit-wonder. Just wait and see.” Carrie swears she hears someone mumble under their breath, ‘One-hit wonder? Yeah, just like her dad.’ 

Her hand grips the cable hard as she unplugs her phone from the speaker, “Forget it. If you’re not going to take this seriously, then practice is cancelled. Just go home.” Carrie doesn’t move from her spot as the rest of the group leaves one by one out of the studio. If she looks any of them in the eyes, she’s scared she might cry. She hears Kayla’s voice from behind her.

“Don’t listen to any of them, alright? They don’t know what they’re talking about.”

Carrie slams her phone on the table and spins to face her, “Wow, nice of you to defend me after everybody’s gone. What the fuck was that?”

She takes a step back. “You’re off your game Carrie. I’m just trying to-”

Carrie barks out a laugh. “Just get out Kayla. You’re not helping.”

Kayla’s face falls and she storms out of the room. Carrie packs her bag and gets going. She did it again. Mean Carrie, Bitchy Carrie. The whole reason Nick left her in the first place.

She navigates herself through the hallways. Once she’s almost out of the school she hears a voice ring out from the hallways. Nick’s voice. She slows her walk and walks towards the sound. At the end of the hallway stands Nick, talking to himself. He’s not on the phone and Carrie knows that he doesn’t have any wireless earbuds (He’s convinced he’ll lose them).

It’s not like the act of talking to himself is cause for concern. Everybody talks to themselves occasionally. It’s the fact that he sounds older. Not that he’s putting on a voice or just lowering his pitch, he sounds like a totally different person. It also sounds hollow, like the speaking isn’t coming from his vocal cords, just the throat area. That doesn’t make any sense to her but it’s exactly what it sounds like. 

Ashamedly, she runs. Carrie takes off through the school and ends up panting on the sidewalk. 

Shit.

Carrie isn’t bitter. She’s not. Sure, Nick broke up with her even though she’s the most popular girl in their grade. 

And she’s pretty. And talented. Plus her dad is kinda famous but whatever. It happens. But that’s not why she thinks that something is wrong with Nick. Something has been off ever since Julie played the Orpheum and she can’t believe she only just noticed.

And it’s not because she’s jealous. Like at all. She’s not jealous that Nick broke up with her to be with Julie and even when Julie turned him down he stayed broken up. Carrie definitely doesn’t care that Julie, Flynn, and Nick hang out together and talk in class and tell jokes when they’re walking down the hallway to class. She has friends. Most of Dirty Candy doesn’t really hang out with her anymore except for Kayla but they’re all still friends. 

Whatever. She’s not jealous. It’s just that something is completely, entirely wrong with Nick.


	2. Chapter 2

The school desk shook slightly as Carrie bounced her leg, watching the clock on the wall with rapt attention. She had spent all of last night trying to come up with a plan to deal with the Nick situation. It was a two stage operation. 

Step 1: Figure out what is wrong. 

Step 2: Fix it.

Unfortunately, she still had no clue how to accomplish either of those objectives. The clock hands edged forward as her teacher began to write the homework on the board. Three minutes left. Carrie sighed. Every plan she came up with led to the same place.

She had to talk to Julie and Flynn. 

It’s not that she particularly wanted to. She had no other options. Kayla had already decided not to believe her and Carrie needed someone to help her with this. Julie and Flynn seem to be Nick’s new friends so it’s the only solution. The three of them had been friends for years. Surely, there had to still be some trust left over from back then. This has to work. Carrie isn’t sure what she’ll do if it doesn’t.

The bell rings. She fights the urge to run out into the hallway as she slowly packs up her backpack. Having grown up in the music industry, she knows how important a reputation is. Above all else, she has to act like everything is normal. Same peppy attitude (the one that gives outsiders the impression that she could be an enthusiastic cheerleader even though most people would describe her as passive aggressive, sassy asshole) and a walk so confident some students are afraid to look her in the eye. 

Carrie stations herself by the front door of the school and pulls out her phone, pretending to scroll through it as she examines the crowd of students pushing their way out of the building Luckily, she only needs to wait a few minutes. Out of the corner of her eye she catches both Julie and Flynn walking towards her. She lets them exit the building and follows shortly after. 

The crowd thins once they get outside as everyone begins to head different directions. Once Julie and Flynn are a good distance away from most of the other students, she makes her move. Carrie quickens her pace until she’s right behind the two of them and grabs the back of Julie’s backpack, causing her to fly backward. Flynn turns around sharply, ready for a confrontation and Carrie drops her hand immediately. 

Quickly, Carrie realizes she has no plan. Julie and Flynn owe her absolutely nothing. She’s the reason that they all stopped being friends. They both hate her.

Flynn glares at her, “What the hell Carrie?” Her words come out sharp and her arms are folded over her chest.

“Sorry,” she says quickly, remaining optimistic despite the mess she’s gotten herself into. “I didn’t think you’d talk to me otherwise.”

Julie scoffs, "Yeah, there’s a reason for that. What do you want?”

Carrie lets out a slow breath. “I need your help.”

“Oh really?” Flynn raises her eyebrows, “To do what? Sweep the choir room floor before you walk in? Mend holes in your million dollar costumes?”

A lot of effort goes into not being angry. Carrie knows she deserves every word so there’s no point in getting fired up about it. “It’s about Nick, alright?”

Julie tilts her head slightly. “What about him?”

“He’s been acting weird lately and I think there’s something seriously wrong with him.” Suddenly, Julie’s expression falls and Carrie realizes that she probably should’ve worded that better.

“Something’s wrong with him because he’s hanging out with me now?” she asks.

Flynn jumps to Julie’s aid before Carrie has a chance to respond, “Maybe the difference is that he actually likes hanging out with us.”

She stumbles back a step and tries to figure out where to go from here. She can’t believe that both of them think she’s that self-centered. Sure, she acts like it but she didn’t think she was that horrible. "Well, I know Nick pretty well and I think-”

“Maybe you don’t know him as well as you thought.” Julie interrupts, raising her eyebrows. Flynn grabs her arm and pulls both of them away, leaving Carrie alone on the sidewalk.

That’s not true. It just isn’t. Carrie and Nick dated for nearly a year and she knows him better than anybody. She knows that he only plays lacrosse because he likes hanging out with the guys on the team and which fedora is his favorite. He told her which songs he likes to play on the guitar for his little sister. Julie had her first conversation with him two weeks ago. How could they know him better then she did?

Carrie sticks her hands on her hips and lets out a frustrated sigh. “Yeah, well whatever!” she calls out after them, “It’s not like I actually needed your help anyway.” They don’t acknowledge her at all, though if Flynn was calling her a demon under her breath Carrie wouldn’t be surprised. 

A small voice in her head tells her that this situation would never have happened if she hadn’t been such a bitch this past year. She dismisses it as quickly as she can but not before a small seed of self-loathing settles in her stomach. Being a bitch is one of her best qualities. And that’s not something she tells herself because after the fight with Julie and Flynn she started being mean one day and now she’s not sure how to stop. 

Sure, she rubs some people the wrong way. She chooses to see it as passion and drive. It’s infuriating that she has to figure out this mystery and how to fix it alone. But it’s not going to stop her. After all, if you want something done right, do it yourself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is kinda short! I took a break when school started back up again but I should be able to write more often now so keep an eye out. This should be the last set-up-the-plot type chapter


	3. Chapter 3

Her dad is on the couch rifling through a large cardboard box when Carrie walks through the door. He only stops for a moment to look up at her and say, “Hey sweetie, how was school?”, before turning his attention back to searching. He sounds almost out of breath and his shoulders are tense. 

“It was fine,” she sighs. “I got in an argument with Julie but whatever.”

This is enough to bring her dad back to the present. He closes the lid on the box and starts walking towards her, “How is Julie anyway? You know, with the band thing?”

Even at home, Carrie can’t escape the apparent eternal awesomeness that is Julie Molina. Her own dad is more interested in her than his daughter. “How would I even know?” She crosses her arms, “It’s not like we’re friends.”

He gives her a look, “That’s still happening? I thought you would have made up by now.”

Carrie resists the urge to roll her eyes. _Yes, it’s still happening. You can’t just stop having a feud with someone._ “Why do you care about her band so much anyway?”

“Well, umm I…” he falters, stealing a glance toward the box abandoned on the coffee table. Before he can give a proper answer, he phone rings and Carrie can see the name of his manager light up on the screen. “Ah, shoot,” he gestures helplessly toward his phone screen, “I’m sorry, I’ve got a meeting; we’ll talk later, alright?” His arms wrap around her for a quick side hug before running out the door. Carrie can hear him placating his manager as he runs out to the car. 

Her backpack drops to the floor as she drags herself to the kitchen to grab a drink. This was unlike her dad. Sure, as a single parent and a musician, he was generally pretty busy but this was different. He was distracted, nervous, almost frantic. 

She begins pouring herself a glass of water and she runs through the past few weeks in her head, trying to figure out what has her dad stressed out. Nothing comes to mind. All she knows is that ever since that day Julie came over, he sprinted out of the house and has been freaked out ever since. 

Hold up.

Julie hangs out with Nick and all of a sudden he isn’t himself. 

Julie comes over to her house and her dad runs out of the house to get to his therapist as fast as he can. He forces her to go to the Orpheum show and he didn’t say a word that entire night.

They can’t be related. You’re being paranoid, she thinks as she gulps down her water nervously. There’s no way Julie could have done all of that. Especially when you don’t even know exactly what “that” even is yet. 

She slowly walks out of the kitchen and stares down the cardboard box on the coffee table. It’s nothing. It’s just a box. If he wanted me to know what was in it he would have shown me.

Curiosity gets the better of her. Setting her glass of water down, she approaches the box and lfts the lid. 

At first glance, it’s just full of miscellaneous junk. She rifles through it, pulling out a bunch of old t-shirts for a band she doesn’t know. Carrie’s not sure what to make of the rest. There a pair of red suspenders, which is baffling because she’s never seen her dad wear suspenders her whole life. As she goes further she finds some worn flannels, a couple of guitar picks, and an old inhaler (her dad doesn't have asthma).

Carrie’s just about to stop looking when she finds an old cd case. On the back is a short list of songs she’s never heard for the same band as the t-shirts. When she flips it, she nearly drops the case in surprise. 

The three guys on the cover look exactly like the guys in Julie’s band. And they’re all standing next to a guy that looks like a younger version of her dad. She didn’t even know her dad had been in a band, let alone in some weird punk-rock boy group thing. That’s crazy enough as is but Carrie is barely able to comprehend the fact that his band was made up of Julie’s holograms. Or maybe Julie’s holograms are made up of his band.

This is too fucked up. She shoves the cd back into the bottom of the box and closes the lid, taking a moment to slow her breathing. None of this makes any sense. She makes a dash towards her room up the stairs, shutting the door behind her as she collapses on her bed. 

Hologram technology didn’t exist in the 90’s. Which means at that point in time, those dudes on the cover were real people. The question was how were they here now? For a brief moment her mind turns to aliens but she shuts that down quick. If the answer for Julie’s band and Nick’s weirdness is somehow connected to aliens, then she doesn’t want to deal with it. Right now there are still better options. 

Maybe they are holograms and Julie just programmed them to look like her dad’s old high school band. Which seemed creepy as shit. 

She runs a hand through her hair. Time travel. It’s the only thing she can come up with. If they had the technology to time travel then they can probably teleport too. It’s basically the same thing-teleporting through time vs teleporting through space. They might not even be from the 90’s originally. Maybe they’re time traveling musicians pretending to be holograms. Of course Julie needed a gimmick to be popular.

Carrie rolls over and shoves her head in the pillow, letting out a frustrated groan. This is where her life is. She lives in a world where time travel makes more sense than holograms. It’s completely unbelievable. 

After a minute she tries to stop all the thoughts swirling in her head. Being upset isn’t going to help Nick.

Slowly, she sits up. A deep inhale followed by a long exhale. Time travel may or may not be real. It might be connected to Nick. It might not. But that’s irrelevant right now. All that matters is that she gets to the bottom of this mystery (no matter how confusing or shocking it may be) and figures out how to fix it. 

Walking across the room, she slides open a drawer. Inside is an old notebook she never got around to using. Next, she fishes her favorite pen out of the cup on her desk. Taking a deep breath, Carrie begins to make a new plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> She's a little confused but she's got the spirit


	4. Chapter 4

**CURRENT OBJECTIVE:** Find Out What Julie and The Band are Hiding

**FINAL GOAL:** Connect Julie’s Mystery Band to Nick and Fix Him (?)

The bell marking the end of the school day rings and Carrie heads straight towards the bathroom. There’s no need to pull out her notebook, she has it memorized already. She had calmed down considerably after writing down what her next steps were going to be. It made her feel more like herself- a woman of action, rather than some kid freaking out in her bedroom.

**Step 1:** Head towards the bathroom on the second floor in the old science hall that no one uses.

She slips into a stall and replaces the light blue pencil skirt she had worn to school with a pair of black sweatpants. Next, she pulls out a gray hoodie and zips it on. 

**Step 2:** Change Clothes

The spy get-up was mainly for function. It’s easier to sneak around in pants than a skirt. Hopefully, dressed like this she’s more unrecognizable. She would never admit it out loud but just the idea of dressing up in nondescript clothing to go sneaking around was a big reason she included this part of the plan. What can she say, she loves committing to an aesthetic.

**Step 3:** Spy on Julie’s Rehearsal

She swings off her backpack and heads back towards the hallway. The school is relatively empty by now. Everyone has either gone home or is busy doing a club or sport. Which leaves Carrie free to walk out of the school without having to talk to anybody.

Eventually, she finds herself outside of Julie’s house. Carrie makes her way to the backyard and takes her position behind Rose’s old studio. The walls muffle the sound of the voices inside. She wonders briefly if it’s worth it to stick her ear up against the outside wall so that she can hear better.

“Hey, Carrie. What’s up?”

She nearly tumbles into the bushes and she jumps backyards in surprise, clasping a hand to her mouth to avoid yelling out. Carlos is standing there, still wearing his school backpack with his hands on hips. 

“What are you doing here?” she replies in a hushed whisper. She backs away from the shed and nods her head to the side, trying to get him to follow her. He obliges, with a small smirk and a walk that’s way too confident for a twelve year old. 

“I live here. What are you doing creeping around our studio?”

Though loath to admit it, the kid had a point. “That’s none of your business,” she tries.

His eyes go wide, “You were spying weren’t you? Trying to steal songs from the band, right?”

“Why would I want to steal their songs? We have totally different styles.”

“Ah ha! You didn’t deny the fact that you were spying.” He looks smug. Carrie puts her hands on her hips as this middle schooler runs circles around an operation that took her two hours to plan. “Did you find out, you know, about _them_?”

She squares her shoulders. “Why? What do you know?”

“You first.”

“Not a chance.”

“I live here and can tell Julie where you are at any second,” Carlos reminds her.

_Shit this kid is good_ “Fine, I don’t know anything. Either Julie’s a computer genius, or she’s hanging out with a bunch of immortal teenagers, or they’re time travelers. It’s weird no matter what and I came over to find out.”

“Really?” he laughs, “Time travel is your best guess?”

“Uh yeah,” she raises her eyebrows, “I don’t know if you're aware but those guys were in a band with my dad and haven’t aged in like, twenty years.”

Carlos pulls out his phone and starts typing. “Uh huh. Did you happen to look up the band they used to be in?”

“Well...,” _No, I freaked out and then forgot about it,_ she thinks.

A phone is shoved towards her face with a headline reading “A Hollywood Tragedy”. “They died, Carrie. They’re ghosts. The band is literally called ‘Julie and the _Phantoms_.”

Her mouth hangs open uselessly as the most obvious solution to the question she had stared her right in the face. Carlos grabs her arm and pulls her towards the house. “Come on, I gotta show you something.”

Carrie lets herself get dragged up the stairs as Carlos rambles on. “The band isn’t practicing today because Julie has a chemistry test and Flynn is helping her study so hopefully this works.”

“You hope what works?” she asks as he finally brings her to his room and shuts the door behind them. 

He turns and looks at her, eyebrows brought together in thought. “I’m only supposed to do this if no one else is in the room; you should probably get in the closet to be safe. Don’t worry, I’ll tell you when to come out.” Carlos walks to the closet and begins shoving clothes out of the way to make a Carrie sized hole.

“Ok there is no way I am doing that.”

He gives her a look, “Do you want to know about the band or not?”

She sighs, rolling her eyes, and slowly makes her way into the closet. Carlos puts a finger to his lips and winks before closing the door.

She sits in the dark, listening intently to what’s happening outside. She thinks she hears a window open. The thought occurs to her that this is probably some dumb prank that she fell for when she hears Carlos start talking. 

“You got here quicker than usual.” Followed by a few moments of silence. Then, “Ok, I called you up for a reason and you’re going to have to trust me a lot.”

Who was he talking to? She couldn’t hear them so Carrie can only assume it is a phone call but she doesn’t know why she has to hide in the closet for a phone call to happen. Carlos takes a deep breath before continuing and Carrie shuffles so that she can hear better. 

“Alright, here goes. Carrie knows about the band. By that I mean she knew a little bit but I kinda told her the rest and I think she should meet you.”

". . ."

“Don’t be like that, she used to be really cool.”

That sentence hits her like a punch to the face and Carrie recalls back when she was close friends with Julie. Back when Carlos was little and she would let him ramble on about whatever new topic had interested him that week. She bites her lip and can’t help but feel hurt. _Used to be cool_

“I think she deserves to know a least a little bit; she seemed really freaked out. Besides we can do that new thing you’ve been practicing.”

A long silence this time, much lengthier than the others. Finally, Carlos says, “Great! Good thing you agreed cause she’s in my closet right now.”

The door opens and Carrie squints as light pours into the small space. She crawls out, her head scraping the bottom of a few jackets. When she stands up she discovers that Carlos is still alone. As far as she can tell he hasn’t even pulled his phone out. The only change in the room is an open notebook laying on his bed filled with scribbles and a pencil. She sighs. “Carlos what is this ab-”

“Shhh!” he interrupts, holding out a hand in the ‘stop gesture’. “It takes a minute.”

She crosses her arms over her chest and waits patiently. Suddenly, a tall teenage boy appears in front of her, wearing a leather jacket and a red flannel tied around his waist. She nearly stumbles back into the closet out of shock while Carlos stares at her, grinning like a madman. The boy (ghost? Carrie isn’t sure what to call him) flashes a hesitant smile and waves.

“Hey, I’m Reggie.”


End file.
